Linguine with Spring Vegetables...

I'm all about pasta slickened with saucy tomato-based dressing, but there are times when lighter add-ins come into play and you want a cleaner coating. This came into play tonight when we prepared this seasonal Linguine with Spring Vegetables for dinner tonight!

I don't know what it is about asparagus this year, but we can't seem to get enough of those green stalks in our meals lately. Along with the asparagus, we increased the vegetable quotient in this pasta dish with a hefty handful of trimmed sugar snap peas - the original recipe actually called for a zucchini to be sliced and tossed in as well, but neither of us was groovin' with that idea, so I just upped the peas. I don't mind zucchini so much, but Jeff doesn't go crazy over it in savory meals (though we both quite enjoy it in baked goods - imagine that!).

Because it was a fairly hectic day, one of the reasons I was attracted to this recipe was it happened to be a contained one-pot dish, which meant less dishes and clean up - woo! When the long strands of linguine were a few minutes short of being done in the pot of boiling, salted water, we tossed the vegetables in and let them cook along side just long enough to perk up their color to a vibrant green and leave them crisp-tender. Some of the starchy water was first set aside, then the pasta and veggies poured out into a colander to drain while we prepared the sauce.

While the recipe didn't call for this step, we wanted to infuse some garlic into the mix - to accomplish this, we melted a pat of butter into the same pot we cooked the pasta, then tossed in a couple cloves worth of minced garlic to take their pungent edge off. Heavy cream was then stirred into the mix, followed by the pasta and vegetables to warm them in the lush sauce. As the cream will tighten as it stands, at this point you'll want to add in enough of the reserved pasta water to thin out the sauce, allowing it to keep feeling light and fluid.

One more touch will take this over the moon - can you guess what that is? Thin, fresh leaves of tarragon! Refreshing, with its bold anise flare, tarragon added enough zip with just two tablespoons that it brought such an interesting and complex twist to this pasta dish that was just what it needed. Tarragon can be somewhat of an under-used herb (at least by us!) as it can quickly become overpowering if restraint isn't followed, but now that we have two plants taking hold in our herb box, we'll have to keep up and start using it more! Filling, rich with vegetables and one alluring, creamy sauce to coat it all, fresh grated Parmesan cheese was sprinkled on top just before we sat down to reveal in spring's awesome bounty.

Recipes
Linguine with Spring Vegetables